ECE Projects – Fall 2023

The Michigan State University College of Music has been developing a new approach to notated music that will enable visually impaired persons to experience music as it was written by composers. The project is meant to offer a three-dimensional, tactile alternative to standard music notation while overcoming the innate limitations of Braille music notation. This project will decrease barriers of entry into classical music for non-sighted individuals and create a new way to learn music. The final product will be an instrumented “sound sensitized” board with recessed staff lines, movable 3D notes, and a computer system that will play the notes as they are placed on the board.

The device will be built with a Raspberry Pi 4 and a Raspberry Pi camera. The camera will capture images of the notes placed on the board and send the pictures to the microcontroller for processing. The embedded software will then standardize, quantize, and white-balance the images for a more accurate analysis and a shorter processing time. The Raspberry Pi will scan the image of the board for the 3D notes placed onto the staff lines and determine the pitch, length, and order of the notes. The device will then output the notes as one continuous audio sample. The sound output will mimic the sound of an electric keyboard and will accurately reflect the notes placed on the board by the user.

In order to improve the device’s user-interface for non-sighted users, the device will be designed to fit in a simple box/case and require minimal setup. Furthermore, the case will be easily portable and will be powered by an embedded, rechargeable battery pack.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Alicia Duenas
Livonia, Michigan

Janet Johnson
Okemos, Michigan

Dylan Calvin
Grandville, Michigan

Jake Adams
Macomb, Michigan

Eli Hilborn
Imlay City, Michigan

MSU College of Music

Project Sponsors

Deborah Moriarty
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Daniel Morris

Fraunhofer USA is a research organization in East Lansing, Michigan that specializes in diamond and coatings technologies. These technologies are employed in several ways in the development of electrodes for electrochemistry utilization. The electrochemical uses of these electrodes include testing water samples for possible contaminants using small sample sizes, which is the purpose of the microfluidic control system. Because other testing methods often require expensive equipment or access to a lab, our goal was to create a reusable, rapid, and cost-effective water testing system.

Our team will take an Arduino-controlled potentiostat and microfluidic pumping system and integrate a wireless communication system to “cut the cord” allowing for remote control operation. The team will use previous semesters’ designs for both the pump and potentiostat and integrate it into a single control user interface.

The demonstrator object will involve 3D printed fluidic flow path, the ability to select between two different fluids stored in separate refillable reservoirs, wireless communication control with a range of 100 ft, real-time data visualization and control of collected data and integration of a new electrophysiology recording circuit.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Jackson Pawlicki
Dexter, Michigan

Luke Manteuffel
New Baltimore, Michigan

Jessica Messing
Freeland, Michigan

Vivek Virdi
Shelby Township, Michigan

Manny Mateo-Saja
White Plains, New York

Fraunhofer USA

Project Sponsors

James Siegenthaler
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Tongtong Li

MSU Bikes was formed in the spring of 2003 with the purpose of promoting biking as a healthier and more sustainable form of transportation than the use of vehicles. It was initially run by volunteers but has now received funding from MSU to open a full- service shop on Farm Lane.

Because MSU’s student population is very large, there is also a high volume of people riding bikes, electric scooters, and many other forms of micro-mobile transportation to travel around campus. Unfortunately, this results in a considerable number of small, yet preventable, accidents involving riders getting into dangerous situations with pedestrians and motorists. To help reduce the total number of bicycle-related accidents around campus, our team is working with the current manager of MSU Bikes, Tim Potter, to develop a device that will hopefully aid in both detecting and preventing further incidents from occurring.

The MSU Bikes Green Box is a powerful, yet portable, device that can be mounted to a bicycle. It enables the rider to collect useful metrics like average speed, location, distance traveled, etc. The device consists of a PCB with an ARM Cortex M0 microcontroller, as well as other circuitry and modules. Developing the PCB from scratch helps keep everything in one place and consistent across the device. The team also wanted to minimize the packaging of the device to make it more compact and comfortable for the rider. The data is collected via a mobile application through Bluetooth connectivity, allowing for a more streamlined and efficient way of viewing important rider telemetry.

With the efforts of the team and the coordination of MSU Bikes, we hope that our device can provide a much safer environment for cyclists traveling around campus, while also helping highlight the accident hotspots to detect potentially dangerous situations before they happen.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Josh Brown
Hastings, Michigan

Brian Garcia
Pontiac, Michigan

Sachid Belagur
Bolingbrook, Illinois

Evan Schleis
Clinton Township, Michigan

Michael Tan
Adrian, Michigan

MSU Bikes Service Center

Project Sponsor

Tim Potter
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Sunil Chakrapani

The MSU Solar Racing Team is a student run organization at Michigan State University that participates in yearly racing competitions with other schools. To successfully compete, the MSU Solar Racing Team needs various equipment. The MSU Solar Racing Team currently has a prototype of their solar car, which is made of multiple electrical systems. Each system requires testing and troubleshooting under conditions that a typical benchtop power supply cannot support.

A power supply is a common component used for experiments and for testing other electronic components. A power supply provides a stable and adjustable source of electrical power for testing, prototyping, and troubleshooting electronic circuits. Power supplies have been used since the 1920s and were revolutionized in the 1950s when semiconductor transistors were used. Presently, modern-day power supplies have LCD or LED screens that display voltage and current.

The main objective of this project is to extend the modern- day power supply by designing a custom power supply to suit the MSU Solar Racing Team’s needs, especially in situations where a typical benchtop power supply is not applicable.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Ishaan Desai
Mumba, Maharashtra, India

Jake Sime
Mason, Michigan

Grace Stein
Port Huron, Michigan

Lynden Badgley
Lansing, Michigan

Kenny Argue
Lansing, Michigan

MSU Solar Racing Team

Project Sponsors

Dashiel Matlock
St. Joseph, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Matthew Hodek

The objective of our project is the development of a Battery Management System, commonly referred to as a BMS, for the Michigan State Solar Racing Team. Throughout previous years, the team has utilized the BMS to implement passive cell balancing. However, one of the key objectives in this initiative is to enhance the BMS to encompass active cell balancing, thereby enabling the sponsor to maximize its advantages.

This project is categorized into two main components: hardware and software. The hardware facet involves designing and setting up a General- Purpose Breadboard, along with the necessary hardware components, to achieve active cell balancing. It also encompasses the capability to precisely gauge voltage and temperature within the modules, as well as monitor battery pack current. The software aspect of this initiative involves the ability to gather crucial data such as voltage, current, and temperature, and transmit this information via a Control Area Network (CAN) line. The collected measurements will be used to indicate any faults through the CAN line. Moreover, the software should be designed to support active cell balancing.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Saleh Alnuaimi
Alain, Abu Dhabi

Rachel White
Rochester Hills, Michigan

Vashcar Nath
Warren, Michigan

Hamad Aldarmaki
Alain, Abu Dhabi

Dylan Stanfill
Burton, Michigan

MSU Solar Racing Team

Project Sponsors

Samuel Rabick
Kalamazoo, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Mohammed Ben-Idris

Institutions such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed simulations which can model the response to a fire. These simulations are able to show the effect of actions taken on a fire. However, they are currently unable to communicate with real-world firefighting robots.

The main goal of this project is to create a hardware- in-the-loop fire simulation system. This system will be able to see the movements of the real-world robot and convey them into the fire simulation, then transmit response data back to the robot. For the purpose of training and monitoring the robot, it is often impossible to train in an actual fire environment due to the inherent safety issues that would cause.

This is made possible using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS), a program that can create virtual scenarios with dynamic effects of fire and smoke. It also can map the location across a 2D space to enable the robot to react to its surroundings.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Aryan Gondkar
Pune, India

Baraa Aljanadi
Okemos, Michigan

Ally Bannon
Boyne City, Michigan

Sean Dimitroff
Howell, Michigan

Ben Gilbert
St Clair Shores, Michigan

MSU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Sponsors

Vaibhav Srivastava
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Panagiotis Traganitis

Every day the Michigan State University Infrastructure Planning and Facilities (IPF) produces electrical energy and steam to supply buildings and facilities with power for their various systems. Each building contains systems for HVAC, Hot Water, Chilled Water, and for the Terminal Devices on each floor. These systems use the energy produced to ensure building functionality.

The goal of this project is to use data collected by MSU IPF to measure how variables such as weather and building occupancy impact these building systems, and to create an energy load profile based on building energy consumption. This profile can then be used by MSU IPF to segment energy production to accommodate building demands for energy.

This will be accomplished using software called SIMCA created by Sartorius. SIMCA is a multivariate data analysis software that can analyze large sets of data configured in a matrix and establish correlations between different variables. This is done using PCA and PLS analyses that normalize sets of data and show correlations visually.

MSU’s campus contains dozens of buildings, each with varying size, age, and complexity. In order to demonstrate that this system can analyze a large range of building types, this project will cover five building system types in depth. These types will include a single system small facility, a multisystem small facility, a newer laboratory building, a residence hall, and a special building, such as an amphitheater, museum, or sports complex.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Daniel Mihailovic
Sterling Heights, Michigan

Jensen Dygert
Northville, Michigan

Ahmed Alyassi
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Mohammed Alhashem
Al-Ahsa, Saudi Arabia

Braden Clewley
Eaton Rapids, Michigan

MSU IPF Building Performance Services/ Sartorius

Project Sponsors

Greg Casee
Freehold, New Jersey

Jason Vallance
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Nelson Sepúlveda

Michigan State University is a distinguished institution of higher education known for its commitment to academic excellence and pioneering research. Within the university, the College of Engineering is recognized for its innovation and scholarly rigor, embodying a tradition of scholarly pursuit, technological advancement, and societal impact.

In the contemporary workplace, the shift towards digitalization has led to an increased demand for effective remote collaboration. This demand arises from the unique challenges faced in remote industrial and collaborative settings, where clear and responsive communication is essential for safety, participation, and productivity. As organizations continue to embrace remote work arrangements and globalized partnerships, the ability to bridge geographical distances through seamless collaboration becomes not only advantageous but imperative for sustained success in a rapidly evolving professional landscape.

The objective of our project is to develop an advanced mobile robot capable of autonomously identifying and locating sound sources and approaching promptly if the sound persists. This innovation holds particular relevance in professional meetings, where seamless communication is of utmost importance.

Our proposed design incorporates a Seeed Studio ReSpeaker Mic Array to pinpoint the primary speaker’s location, transmitting the data to a Raspberry Pi equipped with custom-written software to drive sound localization and movement for the robot body. This collaborative integration of hardware and software represents a new approach to enhancing remote collaboration in professional settings, with the goal of fostering more efficient and engaging digital interactions in the future.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Luke Biddle
Gibraltar, Michigan

David Evans
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Shane Morrison
Howell, Michigan

Daniel Evans
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Haoyan Hu
Midland, Michigan

MSU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Sponsors

Subir Biswas
East Lansing, Michigan

Vaibhav Srivastava
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Shanelle Foster

In the 1970s, Michigan State University created the Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD) in response to the need for equal access to a university education for all students. Since then, they have expanded their services to students with mobility and visual disabilities, as well as hearing impaired, any learning disabilities, brain injuries, psychiatric, and other chronic health conditions. MSU RCPD’s mission is to lead Michigan State University in maximizing ability and opportunity for full participation by persons with disabilities.

Due to the increased use of motor scooters on campus, one of the major challenges faced by those with visual impairments is that the scooters are ultra quiet and fast, making it difficult to hear them approaching and leading to potentially dangerous outcomes. MSU RCPD has a goal of enabling the visually impaired to travel safely around campus without the fear and threat the scooters present. Because the scooters have only recently been installed on campus, there are no safety measures currently in place.

To help with their mission, our project will focus on assisting the visually impaired with the increased usage of electric scooters on the university’s campus. Our goal is to provide an alert system that will effectively notify the visually impaired of scooters in a way that is conventional for campus. We also want to ensure that the environment accommodates the visually impaired rather than requiring the visually impaired to have to conform to their environment. If these scooters provide audible cues to alert them of a scooter present, the danger can be prevented. The biggest success will be for the visually impaired to have completely safe travels on campus in a way that does not burden them with making accommodations.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Vigneshwer Ramamoorthi
Tamil Nadu, India

Pradnya Ghorpade
Pune, India

Shayna Wilson
Harrison Township, Michigan

Kattie Romero-Otero
Pontiac, Michigan

Ayush Chinmay
New Delhi, India

MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities

Project Sponsors

Tyler Smeltekop
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Hayder Radha

Many people throughout the world suffer from varying degrees of visual impairment, making most tasks much more difficult to complete. The VUZIX AR glasses are a versatile, programmable tool that are used to assist people in both work and everyday life. These glasses can be programmed to create a visual description enabling the user to remotely share their view with a professionally trained visual interpreter, who is connected via a camera. The visual interpreter can then assist or guide the user through the task they need to complete.

The goal of this project is to develop and design a smartphone app that connects the user to a visual description software. The app must be accessible and easy to use for someone who is visually impaired. Additionally, we will create the visual description software to enable a visual describer to see through the camera on the glasses and provide an audible description to the user.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Jack Curvey

Commerce, Michigan

Randy Hirmiz

Sterling Heights, Michigan

Larry Williams

Detroit, Michigan

Vinay Gullapalli

Farmington Hills, Michigan

Tyler Baird

Farmington Hills, Michigan

MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities

Project Sponsors

Tyler Smeltekop

East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Nihar Mahapatra

Individuals with hearing impairments frequently encounter challenges in recognizing sounds in their surroundings while struggling to identify the source or its origin.

When confronted with unfamiliar sounds, these individuals often find it challenging to determine whether the source poses any risks. Although some smartphone platforms possess the capability to detect ambient sounds and notify the user, these existing systems remain underdeveloped, displaying unreliability and limited proficiency in sound source identification.

The ultimate objective of this project is to develop a smartphone app that not only notifies users of common environmental sounds but also can identify these sounds and aid in pinpointing their source.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Tony Xue
Wuxi, China

Yunpeng Xin
Hefei, China

Zaid Sweis
Macomb, Michigan

Ethan Silver
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan

Mike Muhammad
Fairview Heights, Illinois

MSU Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities

Project Sponsors

Tyler Smeltekop
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Nihar Mahapatra

For some people, grocery shopping can be a big hassle. Some people just don’t have the time, while others may have a certain mobility disability. It may be hard to get around, carry a basket or push a cart. Our project can help people save time and create an innovative and convenient shopping experience. By developing a robot that can go through store aisles and shop, people’s lives will be made easier. Using an HD camera and scanning technology, the robot is able to scan a list of items and sets out on the shopping trip. This robot navigates to the proper aisle and shelf, picks up an item in the list, and drops it in its basket. Our algorithm enables this robot to seamlessly shop by avoiding all obstacles and taking the most efficient path to get groceries.

The fundamental idea of this system is to create an autonomous robotic aperture that receives a list of items from the user, locates that object on the aisles, picks it up, and returns it to the shopper. The primary parts of this system are a robotic aperture for mobility, a sensor to differentiate between shelf products, an algorithm for interpreting the sensor’s findings, as well as pathfinding to and from the shopper. It is supported by a mechanical apparatus attached to the robot to grab, hold, and drop the item. The algorithm is comprised of three major components processed within an NVIDIA Jetson Nano: the capability to accept a user-defined list of items, a pathfinding and obstacle avoidance system to efficiently find its way to the correct item, and an object detection system that interprets a QR code for recognition. The mechanical arm apparatus is a servo- controlled robotic with a 100g lifting capacity, a five-switch wired controller, multiple motors and joints providing total command and visual manipulation. The arm can be powered from an independent battery source to decrease strain on the already existing system.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Ben Dubey
Sterling Heights, Michigan

Matthew Daube
Peters Township, Pennsylvania

KJ Hobday
Lansing, Michigan

Ishwari Kapale
Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India

Yinglun Xia
Zhengzhou, Henan, China

MSU Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Project Sponsors

Shaunak Bopardikar
Mumbai, India

Project Facilitator

Dr. Robert McGough

Valtech is a global digital agency company founded in 1993 with a focus on business transformation. With expertise in technology, marketing, and experience design, Valtech helps clients anticipate future trends and connect more directly with consumers across their digital touchpoints while optimizing time-to-market and ROI.

A growing problem in our world is the safety of intersections. More pedestrians waiting to cross the road are observed on their phones and often may not notice when it is time for them to cross. This can cause confusion for drivers by making crossing intent less clear, which may cause unsafe situations. Also, there are only a small number of current technologies that can assist pedestrians with disabilities with crossing intersections.

Our project is to create a mobile application tailored to pedestrian safety. This application will be designed to assist pedestrians in navigating busy streets while alerting them to safe crossing opportunities and potential hazards. It leverages technology and data to ensure accurate, real-time information that can significantly reduce the risks pedestrians face in urban settings.

Our design objectives are focused on providing pedestrians with seamless alerts regarding changes in crossing signals. To achieve this, we plan to replicate roadside units (RSUs) using Valtech-provided Hardware Development Kits (HDKs). This will enable us to generate encoded Signal Phase and Timing (SPaT) messages, which can be effortlessly received via Bluetooth on compatible Android devices. Once received, the SPaT messages will pass through a sophisticated algorithm that will determine when there is no anticipated traffic passing through the crosswalk and will generate an appropriate safety message.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Sarah Siemen
Romeo, Michigan

Hugo Ceron
Orlando, Florida

Hannah Beck
Macomb, Michigan

Nathan McNamara
New Baltimore, Michigan

Luke Perelli
Plymouth, Michigan

Valtech Inc.

Project Sponsors

Mike Bush
Detroit, Michigan

Angela Fessler
Detroit, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Jeffrey Nanzer

The Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at MSU is home to the world’s most powerful heavy-ion accelerator. This device enables physicists to produce rare isotopes and perform groundbreaking research.

A key piece of this accelerator is the carbon charge stripper. This device directs the beam through a thin carbon sheet, which in turn strips electrons off particles in the beam. This creates a higher polarity that enables the beam to reach higher speeds.

The thin piece of carbon must rotate and move up and down sinusoidally, so that the sheet does not get obliterated by the beam. Two stepper motors are used to move the carbon, but traditional methods of detecting the carbon’s speed cannot be used, due to the radiation. This is where camera detection and computer vision play a role.

Currently a camera is placed near the stripper looking through a set of mirrors at the carbon sheet. This gives engineers a live feed of the carbon stripper in action.

The goal of this project is to take the video feed of the carbon stripper and calculate the RPM of the rotating sheet. This would ensure that the motors are functioning as desired and eliminate any potential downtime of the beam.

Our design will utilize optical flow algorithms together with edge detection on a portion of the charge stripper. This will enable us to obtain a vector map of the movement of the charge stripper. We can then calculate the RPM using dimensions of the device and compare our result with the RPM fed to the motors. This program will be able to continually monitor the stripper and provide feedback to engineers at the FRIB on the motors’ current status.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Josh Warminski
Macomb, Michigan

Kevin Ladley
Trenton, Michigan

Andrew Reilman
Northville, Michigan

Kevin Cawley
Flossmoor, Illinois

Easton Currie
Eagle, Michigan

MSU Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

Project Sponsors

Shriraj Kunjir
East Lansing, Michigan

Project Facilitator

Dr. Jian Ren

In the world of self-driving cars, there are many different technologies to help detect surrounding landscapes. The popularity of autonomous cars has boosted the research and development of things like light detection and ranging (lidar) and cameras to determine different varieties of roadway and objects near vehicles, such as signs, pedestrians, and other cars. However, some of these options are not reliable in certain weather conditions. Rain or fog can render these technologies ineffective, so it is necessary to find alternative solutions for these scenarios.

Radio detection and ranging (radar) is a dependable choice. Its larger wavelengths are not obstructed or disrupted by large particles in the air, and it can easily detect objects in clear view of a vehicle. An issue arises, however, when radar attempts to identify things at an irregular position, such as objects to the side of a vehicle or on the surface below it. These objects often do not reflect most of the transmitted signals back to the radar, so it makes it difficult for the radar to understand those objects’ positioning.

The focus of this project is to tackle the above challenge. Using Texas Instruments (TI) radar transceivers, it is our job to identify the slope of a declined plane. We will position a vehicle-model on a horizontal slope immediately facing towards a declined plane. The design will focus on positioning the radars on the model in a way that will optimize the amount of received signals sent to the plane. This means the radars will be placed near orthogonally with respect to the slope at slightly different angles in order to capture a full range from 0 to 90 degrees. We will send relevant processed data from the radars to an Arduino, which will run our trigonometric algorithms to calculate the angle. Several intervals between 0 and 90 degrees will be tested to achieve an accurate reading of +/-10% degrees.

Michigan State University

Team Members (left to right)

Pebbles Benavides
Fenton, Michigan

Drew Bayait
Florham Park, New Jersey

Joseph Mackinnon
Plymouth, Michigan

Grant Middler
Clinton Township, Michigan

Sam Bollman
Rockford, Michigan

Texas Instruments

Project Sponsors

Anil Mani
Dallas, Texas

Project Facilitator

Dr. Yiming Deng